Telecommunications giant AT&T announced recently that 4,200 energy efficiency programs implemented at company facilities in 2010 will resulted in $44 million in annualized savings.

When in comes to energy efficiency upgrades, companies have to start spending money in order to start saving money on energy costs — proving the adage that it costs green to go green — but the example set by AT&T could go a long way to convincing other companies to start saving energy with upgrades of their own.

There were several major changes that lead to AT&T’s notable savings:

- Incandescent light bulbs were replaced with LED bulbs at more than 1,100 sites.

- Network switches were removed at 11 central office sites, cutting network power consumption by more than 300,000 kilowatt hours.

- Power management software was installed on 169,000 computers, which alone resulted in $614,000 in annualized savings.

- Energy use was tracked and energy efficiency issues identified at the company’s top 500 energy-consuming facilities through the “Energy Scorecard,” a comprehensive performance-grading program rolled out in 2009.

“The roll out of the energy scorecard and energy training program were key factors which enabled AT&T to achieve these significant energy savings,” said John Schinter, AT&T’s Director of Energy, in a statement.

Schinter said that participation in the Climate Corps program helped the company identify potential savings of 80 percent on lighting costs across more than 100-million square feet of space. “This underscores that a compelling business case for energy efficiency can be made at any company,” Schinter said.